Phoneme \ɔː\ in General American (international version)
and IPA phoneme .}} In General American the IPA phonetic symbol /ɔː/ corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "north", "force", "thought", and also "cloth" (the latter is pronounced /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation). In Received Pronunciation, this phoneme is heard in "north", "force", and "thought". Additionally, many people pronounce "sure" as /ʃɔːr/ instead of the more traditional /ʃʊər/. See IPA phoneme /ʊə/. In Received Pronunciation /ɔːr/ is pronounced ɔː unless it is followed by a vowel, i.e. when the spelling has an "r", it is normally silent unless it is followed by a vowel. In General American the "r" in /ɔːr/ is always pronounced. Many people pronounce /ɔː/ and /ɔːr/ with different vowels (e.g. sauce as sɔs and source as sors); however since the difference is predictable there is no problem using the same symbol in both cases (e.g. /sɔːs/ and /sɔːrs/). There are places in the United Kingdom where /ɔːr/ is pronounced ɔːr, and places in North America where /r/ is silent. Common words Some common words containing /ɔː/ include the following: * with "oa": abroad, broad * with "ough": ought, thought :past tense and past participle: bought, brought, fought, sought, thought * with "a": water * with "al": almost, already, alter, always, chalk, false, salt, talk, walk * with "all": ball, call, fall, hall, mall, small, talk, walk, wall * with "aw": dawn, flaw, hawk, jaw, law, lawn, raw, saw, shawl, thaw, yawn * with "au": auction, August, Aussie, austerity, Australia, Austria, author, autumn, cause, clause, daughter, fault, launch :past tense and past participle: caught, taught *with "ou": cough Words marked are pronounced with /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation. /ɔːr/ Some common words containing /ɔːr/ include the following (note that the /r/ is silent in Received Pronunciation, unless it is followed by a vowel) * with "or": afford, born, cork, door, floor, fork, horse, lord, more, nor, or, pork, score, short, store, storm, sword * with "oar": boar, board, oar, roar, soar * with "our": court, four, pour * with "ar": quarter, war, warm, warn * homophones: bored/board - or/oar/ore. /ɔː/, /ɑː/ or /ɒ/ Note that /ɒ/ and /ɑː/ sound identically in most of North America. All these words have an /ɒ/ sound in Received Pronunciation. *alcoh'o'''l, B'o'ston, ch'o'colate, gone, on, wash /ɔːr/, /ɑːr/ or /ɒr/ * borrow, Florida, orange, sorrow, sorry, tomorrow, warrant, warranty Cot-caught merger ''Main article: Cot-caught merger In many parts of North America (about half the United States and all of Canada)William Labov,The Organization of Dialect Diversity in North America, The o/oh merger The /ɑː - ɔː/ merger. /ɑː/ and /ɔː/ sound the same. This is in addition to the father - bother merger, where /ɑː/ and /ɒ/ sound the same. This means that caught /ɔː/, cot /ɒ/, father /ɑː/ and bother /ɒ/ have all the same stressed vowel /ɑː/. In this accent /ɔː/ appears only followed by /r/: north, force. ;Homophones The cot-caught merger generates very few homophones. *bot (computer program; shortening of robot) - bought; collar - caller; cot - caught; don (put clothes on)/Don (nickname of Donald) - dawn/Dawn; stock - stalk; Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1 Spanish Many Spanish speakers will pronounce the short o sound as /ɔː/ even when it should be pronounced /ɑː/: lot as . It is not uncommon to hear them pronouncing or . References See also *Homophone Phoneme /o~2/ in General American Vowel /o2a/ o2a